How To Draw Comic Book Style Hair- Art Lesson

In this video is a quick tutorial for how to raw comic book style hair. its pretty simple and I touch on aspects like hair placement and how hair is best drawn in chunks rather than individual pieces. I touch a little on shading but most just a quick tutorial on the subject. enjoy

The Art Of The Open Mic

Recently I have been going to the local open mic and if you have never been to one I highly suggest going. The open mic is a magical land where the things you say can actually be heard by a group of disgruntled people looking for an outlet. The particular open mic that I have been going to is for “comedy.” I’m from a town with no comedy except for the stray comedian that comes through here every now and then, so expectations are pretty low and I’m happy about that.

The first time I went there weren’t that many people and their rule is that the longer you have been going the earlier you get to go on stage, which really sucks for the new guy. So, if its your first time you get to sit through everybody’s jokes and the fear will paralyze your ear drums and you wont even be able to hear anything. You keep looking over your jokes because most of the time you wont have the foresight to memorize it anyway. Looking over the jokes you realize that none of it is funny like you thought it was (relax that just the pre-stage jitters) so you start to mark off any and all the jokes you think wont get a laugh. As you run out of material you begin to consider that maybe its just nerves that have made you mark all these lines on your notes.

And after the torture of having to wait the whole time then it becomes your moment. Here’s a tip for the first timer, don’t sit too far in the back because you’ll want to get to the stage while they’re still clapping, for self esteem purposes. Then they call your name and your heart starts racing, you get up and your knees are weak. You walk on stage concentrating on not falling down. Raising your head you see all the hopeful faces waiting for you to make them laugh. You’re in luck, they’re on your side.

Now its time to be funny.

　

Honduran Job - 2

Here is strip number two, the idea of a new character is introduced.  sorry this one is not in color either but I have been very busy and my internet keeps going down is why this is up monday insteat of saturday.
If you think you know who the characters are leave a comment ..... maybe your right, maybe not.

 If the image is too small just click on it, it should bring up a larger image.

Getting Older Sucks

I would like to start by saying my birthday is tomorrow and my bday always makes me want to fight somebody. I’m going to be 28, its not that old but your 10 years away from 18 and 12 years away from 40. When you look at it like that makes you want to dig your heels in and fight it but time is like Mexican food it always catches up with you. I wish I was the kind of person that could just celebrate by getting drunk but I’m not, I’m the kind of person that is going to analyze every angle of it until I go crazy. My birthday is like a flashback episode of the last year of being me, except its not funny like tv its mostly just sad like the news. I’m not afraid of getting older but the thought of where I will be in 5 or 10 years really makes me nervous. Let me tell you why.

I recently, and by recently I mean last August, quit a job that I loved and had for 3 years with the county but I had been with the county for 5 or 6 years(I cant remember) and before that I was working part time at the job I most recently quit. Now I am unemployed on purpose but when you hold your future in your own hand and don’t hand it off to someone else it tends to makes you nervous. I like to think life is meant to be spent taking steps forward, but with this recent move it seems like a giant leap backwards.

I loved birthdays when I was a kid and there is almost nothing better in life than cake….. Mmmmm cake. But what are you really celebrating, a night when your parents had all the kids they wanted and destroyed that because they didn’t have cable….. Woo hoo lets party. Maybe we are celebrating the miracle of life that happens a bazillion times a day, I don’t know if something that happens that much is really a miracle. Is it Life that you celebrate when its your birthday, tell me if I’m mistaken but a great life is celebrated by just experiencing it, if someone has to stop your life to remind you to celebrate then its probably not that good. I’m probably just being bitter but Birthdays blow, Hard!

Inkscape quick tutorial

Inkscape is my favorite vector design software and best of all its free. Its pretty simple and simple to use depending on what you are trying to do. I like to trace my drawings and make shirt designs on Inkscape. I know there are many levels to doing things like this but for what I need it for it is pretty simple.

Step 1- draw picture with pencil and paper
Step 2- scan drawing into the computer
Step 3- open inkscape (I’m going to assume you have it downloaded already)
Step 4- click file- open and choose the file you saved your drawing under
Step 5- open the pen tool not the pencil (well that’s what I use if it’s a sketchy drawing)
Step 5.1- If it’s a really good drawing with only black and white and solid black lines then use Path- Trace bitmap this should give a clean trace vector of your drawing.
Step 6- use the pen to trace small sections of the drawing and use the “Edit Path Nodes” tool to manipulate the lines. (I try to limit each line to only one curve…. Play with it a little and you’ll get it.)

When your done tracing you will have a complete vector rendering of your artwork. Stay tuned for more Inkscape tutorials I’ll be posting more in the future. If you need any help just drop me a line on twitter @smellyfingertee and I’ll be happy to help any way I can.

Business as Art

Art and business, two very opposing sides ideals, or are they. The ideals of each are never thought of in any form of balance, there is no yin and yang here, its more like positive and negative. Lets take a look at both and see if there is anything that can be done about this. First lets talk about art.

The bohemian heart is something else, living through your art, enjoying life and the only rules are beauty, truth and love. Living with passion is something everyone at one time or another wishes they could enjoy, finding true love is the dream of many, and being true to yourself is the only way to be happy. The life of a bohemian artist is letting passion lead the way and using feeling and inspiration to paint the masterpiece of your life. What a great thought, unrealistic but a great thought.

Business on the other hand is cold and calculating. It is ruled by logic and reason, a laboratory sterile of feeling. A successful business man is believed to be just the same usually devoid of any likeable personality. A cold machine programmed to for one purpose and one purpose only, profit. Profit is the only god of the business entity and values it over anything else. With the prophet of profit as the financial statement bringing the gospel of the bottom line. A little research will show that the god of business also demands human sacrifice for the glory of the bottom line. One word, despicable.

In the eyes of the law a corporation is a separate entity, like a person, so I think the solution to the unrealistic expectations of the bohemian life and the emotionless corporation is to bring two polar opposites together to create something like what a corporation is under the law, a feeling person. If the bohemian ideals are fused with the logic and reason of business you don’t get a sell out artist or the lazy guy at the office, you get a business with human needs at the forefront. I believe business can be another form for an artist to express his/herself. Fusing the two allows the artist to create a new entity with truth and love at its heart but also prepared for the harsh realities we all confront but doing it at the expense of no one. It allows the artist to create but it also makes the world a better place, isn’t that what all artist really strive for in the first place.